A visit to the spot where Hitler committed suicide and to to the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

Until I reached the spot where Hitler shot himself after consuming Cyanide, I was not at all paying attention to that guy who was explaining the already known history of Berlin Wall, parliament, and other stuffs! That instant was very crucial to me. In my unconscious mind, I was thinking that Hitler did it in any of the border place of Germany; frankly, I am very poor in history too! Nothing was there in that spot, just an ordinary place without any identifiable mark. Vivek and I were talking our ‘own’ constructed history of everything till we heard that word, Hitler from the guide.

with Sajeev Chemmany

Today I am writing about our journey to both of these two places,  firstly the spot where Hitler shot himself and the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin. That day was very much special for two reasons. We had two guests from Calicut via Delhi, Mr. Sajeev Chemmany and Soumya Balakrishnan, the two cosmopolitan citizens in every sense. They were in their usual ‘exploring Europe journey’ via Berlin when we met them at the ZOB in Berlin. Both are media persons based in Delhi. Sajeev is a staunch football player and a good fan of European football. Then our talks revolved round football and European clubs. He whispered me that one of his aims to visit Germany was to buy a Bayen Munich club Jersey! They knew many languages, Malayalam, Hindi, English, Italian, Tamil, Telugu, and many more. They had all information in their hand and plan in their mind. Instead we guided them they brought us to the Free Berlin city walking tour. The tour would start from Brandenburg Gate at 11 am. We thought there would be a very less people for this walking tour and so we reached before the gate around 10.45.

Only then we understood a flood of people had already reached there to participate in the free tour. The concept of this free tour is a walking about 3 hours in the main tourist point of Berlin. The guide would explain the history and importance of each place. He never goes inside of any of the place, but it is a participant’s responsibly to go and spend some euro, if he/ she likes. I was not at all interested to go for that tour, because I thought I knew all the places and I had seen already all the places and I had read the history of the places, the guide would explain. So I was sure, it would be just 3 hours walking and spending of time. But our guests were too much excited and interested to hear each story of the city. We were given some numbers and papers by the walking tour people and they divided us into multiple groups. In our group, they included numbers from 95 to 130. In these 35 people, there were different nationalities. I was guessing the majorly must be Indians and in Indians again the majority must be Keralites. I was proud of my country/ state to feel me proud in a foreign country. That tourist guide guy was looking very impressive and energetic. To make an initial interest to the participant, he asked who were among us staying in that hotel pointing a far away hotel. And he waited 26 seconds to get an answer. Actually nobody was staying there, and then he explained the reason for it. That building was too expensive and placed in the heart of the city. Only big wigs like the ministers, ambassadors of different countries, corporate businessmen could only afford such a highly cost.

Then he gave details the different flags floated in the air. These were different embassies with colourful flags. The flags of France, Britain, USA, Russia, and lots of European countries were waving in the air. He then explained the history of Brandenburg Gate (see my next blog post). He could not control his emotions when he explained the misery the people the Berlin Wall made them. His words were broken and it trembled and sometimes he took time to find a word to explain. The Brandenburg Gate witnessed all the tears and laughs of the Berlin people. Next was German parliament, when it was parliament I just escaped the explanation, because we had already visited the parliament and sat inside of the parliament. (I will write about the journey soon). When he was talking about the parliament I distanced from the group and went to a nearby iron statue. 

I took my camera to take a snap of that statue, but then suddenly the statue covered his face with his hand! I was terrified first; I could not realize what was going on. I stood with my mouth wide open. The statue smiled me! Then only I realized that it was not a real statue but someone had dressed up as a statue of Lenin! I really thought it was an iron statue. He raised his two fingers. I thought something special happened to him and he was showing the victory sign. Then Vivek, standing behind me remembered that he was not showing any victory sign, but he was asking two euro to take a photo with him., I said ‘salaam’ in my  mind and turned to the walking tour party.

But they were not there. I knew if the guide had finished explaining about German Parliament then the only thing the guide would show was Alexander plaza or Topography of Terror, if these were not, then, of course, it would be Check Point Charlie. So we were about to go to Topography of Terror. Then we saw the group were standing just opposite of the Brandenburg Gate and he was explaining something. We trickily reached there and tried to listen to him. The group members were very keen to hear him. Even our guests did not show any interest to greet us; all were enchanted with his powerful and clear words. Then I smelled something serious discussion was going on there. I did not see anything fascinating there, but a part of the street road and a traffic signal before them. All most all were taking photos of that street road. I laughed in mind and wondered that people would have gone mad. Slowly we understood that he was explaining the end of Hitler and his sad death. The place where Hitler committed suicide is now a car park and grassy knoll.

The consensus is that Adolf Hitler took a cyanide capsule and shot himself in the head on April 30, 1945 in his bunker in Berlin. Tanks and troops of Soviet General Vasily Chuikov's Eighth Guards army had fought to within a few blocks of the Reich Chancellery. Adolf Hitler was based in his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery building. Bomb proof and with its own air recycling plant, the complex had been built without a proper communication system. The only way staff officers could know about the extent of the Red Army’s movement into Berlin was to phone civilians at random (if their phones worked) to ascertain if the Red Army was in their vicinity. Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, had brought his wife and six children to the apparent safety of the bunker. The end was clearly at hand. With Germany lying in ruins after six devastating years of war, and with defeat imminent, Hitler decided to take his own life. On April 28th, Hitler received a report that Himmler, head of the SS, had been in touch with the Allies regarding surrender.

this is the place where hitler killed himself

Himmler had contacted Count Bernadette of the Swedish Red Cross. Adolf Hitler had always considered Himmler to be the most loyal of his men. When he received a Reuter’s confirmation of the report, witnesses said that he exploded with rage. He accused an SS officer in the bunker, Herman Fegelein, of knowing about what Himmler had planned. Fegelein admitted that he had known about it and, stripped of all his rank and medals, he was marched by SS guards to the Reich Chancellery garden and shot. Early on the morning on April 29, 1945, in a civil ceremony in his bunker, Hitler married his mistress of many years, Eva Braun. The wedding service was held in Hitler’s private sitting room. A low ranking Nazi official who had the authority to perform a civil wedding was brought in by Goebbels. Eva Braun wore a black silk dress for the occasion. In keeping with Nazi requirements, the official had to ask both Hitler and Eva Braun whether they were of pure Ayran blood and whether they were free from hereditary illnesses. Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann signed the register. The next day at a little after 3:30 p.m., they bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. As he did so, Hitler also shot himself in the head with a 7.65 mm Walther pistol.

Though there seems little doubt that Adolf Hitler had already decided that suicide was his only option, and also that of Eva Braun’s, it is probable that these two pieces of information moved that nearer. Hitler had also received confirmation that Mussolini had been caught in Italy, shot and his body, along with that of his mistress, Clara Pettachi, had been hung upside down in a square in Milan. Above all else, Adolf Hitler had decided that such humiliation would not happen to him as he ordered that his body should be burned. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun were wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze. In May 1945 a Russian forensics team dug up what was presumed to be the dictator’s body. Part of the skull was missing, apparently the result of the suicide shot. The remaining piece of jaw matched his dental records, according to his captured dental assistants. And there was only one testicle.

You can watch this explanation on Hitler’s death here

I was watching to the faces of the tourists. There were different emotions interchanging, and the common feeling on every face was a feeling of amazing. A dictator who controlled the whole Europe with his thumb, found his death in that spot, was they were thinking that moment. Then the guide led us to the holocaust memorial, that memorial also was, first time I heard about. This time we did not miss him. The 2,711 pillars, planted close together in undulating waves, represent the 6 million murdered Jews. Both the subject matter (which has forced a taboo part of Germany’s past into public consciousness) and the site have raised controversy. The 19,000 square metre block of land, situated just south of the Brandenburg Gate, has a dark past. In 1937, it housed the office of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels; nearby was Hitler’s Chancellery and the infamous bunker where he ended his life. 

Designed by US architect Peter Eisenman, controversial plans for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe were approved in 199 Architect Peter Eisenman stirred controversy when he unveiled plans for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The building of the ‘Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe’ has been a protracted process. First proposed in the late 1980s, the project was not approved by politicians until the late 1990s, with American architect Peter Eisenman’s finalised design being presented to the public in 1999. Now, in 2005, here it was: an entire city block covered, seemingly haphazardly, in huge concrete blocks. Some of the ‘stelae’ lay low to the ground, while others stood upright, the tallest reaching a height of 4.7 metres. The Holocaust Memorial is constructed of massive stone blocks arranged on a 19,000 sq m (204,440 sq foot) plot of land between East and West Berlin. 

The stone slabs seem to undulate with the sloping land. There are no plaques, inscriptions, or religious symbols at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The solid rectangular stones have been compared to tombstones and coffins. Visitors to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe can follow a labyrinth of pathways between the massive stone slabs. Architect Peter Eisenman explained that he wanted visitors to feel the loss and disorientation that Jews felt during the Holocaust. Each stone slab at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a unique shape and size. The stone slabs at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial have been coated with a special solution to prevent graffiti.

Critics protest that the Memorial is too abstract and does not present historical information about the Nazi campaign against the Jews. Other people say that the Memorial resembles a vast field of nameless tombstones and captures the horror of the Nazi death camps. People who praise the Berlin Holocaust Memorial say that the stones will become a central part of Berlin's identity. Many people felt that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe should include inscriptions, artefacts, and historical information. To meet that need, a visitor's centre was constructed beneath the Memorial stones. The Memorial opened to the public on May 12, 2005 and now carries its sombre message to the world. Protests against the Memorial – both its concept and design – have been numerous.

While I was wondering seeing the thousands of the unique and uniform slabs, Vivek who was sitting beside me suddenly lied down on the floor. I was speechless and could not understand what to do next. Many people might feel a kind of depression seeing the very abstract and symbolic structures of thousands of graveyard slabs, so I thought he might have struck with something. Three moments passed, I could not move from the place or even could not close my mouth. I was watching him, and then he did two- three push-ups as he does in a Gymnasium and stood up. Then he whispered in my ear, ‘let’s move forward! The walking tour had already left the place, so we walked fast.

Book Review: 'No Alphabet in Sight New Dalit Writing from South India: Dossier1: Tamil and Malayalam'; Edited and Introduced by K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu

‘I don’t think I am a poet yet. On the primordial grasslands of my people, there is poetry. I might yet become a poet when I get there. That will be my true poetry.

(Raghavan Atholi; The Poet with a Forest Fire Inside, Pg. 345)

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O! My God! I have just finished reading of the 650 page ‘No Alphabet in Sight New Dalit Writing from South India’ a book edited and introduced by K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu. I have bought this book paying money from my pocket! Its price is 600 (sorry, actually 599!), that means each of its page costs Rs 1. I picked it up when the book was released at a function organized at the EFLU campus. I wished the book to possess, for I wished the authors’ signatures on it. And I got it. When I purchased it, I soliloquised that, one day I would read it, if not today or tomorrow. Today is that day when I devoured this book. It was the time to go to Germany and I wanted some books to carry with me. I could select any of the books I had in my room, but I preferred this one. My brother frequently asked me whether I would take this book with me. It is a very heavy considering its heaviness and its content. I said him, yes, but he tried to put out of sight in thinking it would be too weighty to be carried. Actually Nehru compelled me to take this book with me! Nehru? Yes, in my seventh class, I have read a lesson about Nehru and his words about book. If we respect a book, we are actually respecting its author(s). Prof. Satya Narayana and Prof. Susie Tharu edited this book. I hoped both would guide me if I took this book with me.

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me with Prof. Susie Tharu

For my MPhil, my research query was the (im)possibility of a dalit literature in Kerala and again the (im)possibility of a community formation among dalits. When I completed reading this book, I suddenly memorized my thesis. One of the tactics to disprove is, comparing Kerala dalit life with the life of Maharashtra where a strong dalit movement and literature emerged out. As the book argues that comparing a dalit life in a state like Kerala to the dalit in Bihar is very problematic. It actually reduces the issue of the entire dalit problems into a very few issues like untouchability or two tumblers system, but the marginalization of dalits are multifaceted and diverse. Anywhere in the book, they are not comparing their lives with other states of India to prove that as everywhere, the South also has a dalit literature, but it speaks only the two states, and its multiple possibilities of dalit writing. Dalits are not a homogenous category so as their stories. Everybody contributes to the dalit literature in their own way. There are sturdy internal criticisms, multiple voices and solutions to face the challenges, celebration/ demolition of the same political and social idols, a parallel dalit feminist critique, but all journeys flow for a common cause.  The book is not narrating a homogenous dalit experience or dalit literature, each page of the book is a small stream which reaches to the ocean at last. The pages are colourful, but powerful current as in a river. Don’t expect it’s only a downward river which reaches to the ocean. It also diverts somewhere and goes in search of upwards current. But whatever way it goes, it reaches to the ocean called dalit literature. This is not a simply a Dossier as the book claims. It is not a simple collection of diverse writing of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but its introduction itself is influential to make a separate book. The introduction is detailed the miniature events happened in the states. When this introduction is added to the first pages, the book broadens its length beyond a just dossier. By giving its name ‘No Alphabet in Sight’ the authors successfully overcome the issue of an alien title for the book. The title is a title of a Malayalam book, so the authors act as they have nothing added new. The description of the authors are very helpful to understand the background of the writers and their diverse life.

me with Prof. Satyanarayana

The book celebrates the dalit life, most of the writers of the book are dalits by birth, not they are thematically dalits. All the writings start from internal criticism and develop to trouble the accepted notion of establishments. They question everything, untouchability, landlessness, Hindutva agenda, law against the conversion, poverty No dalit writer says meaningless stores, but a story with a social mission. This 650 pages are impressively engraved the everyday realities of the South India States, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This book is a proof for an undeniable truth that there is a strong dalit life narrative emerging out even from extreme south of India. Can one who is not a dalit write dalitliterature? Just listen, what Vizhi. Pa. Idayaventhan says:

‘Well, let me give you the example of Sujata who wrote a story about hunger. I also have a story called ‘choru’. Their sadam (the Brahmin tem for cooked rice) and my choru (the lower caste term) are different. Hunger for me is my experience, but it is also that of my children and my forefathers’ (pg. 169).

Some of them inspire other dalit brethrens with the way they lived. For example, Sreedhara Ganeshan says, ‘To write Vaangal I stopped working for six months, living off a cup of tea and one meal a day. The 1000 page work was edited down to 500 for publication’

When you start reading this book, you may feel as you enter into a burning forest. The fire is so powerful which burns the injustice which is done against the indigenous people. The dalits start to read everything, literature, history, aesthetics, philosophy and all types of stereotyping. Dalits are well aware that they are not attempting to interpret everything in a parallel or opposite of the excising aestheticism. . But dalit practice is not a reflection of any one unity, rather it encompasses a variety of presences, complexities, experiences and absences. The dalit manifestoes of the seventies addressed this condition in which all the elements were interconnected or mixed. (KK Baburaj, Pg. 371). The categories like opposite, alternative, secular, and parallel are delineated by western systems of thought, and the processes of pollution and invisibilization on the East are both in a state of crises. At this juncture, along with the emergence of new subjectivities, discourses of the multitudes are also taking central stage.

with Prof. Susie Tharu

Everywhere we must expect an opposite voice in between different castes, each writing may be the controversial each other, but after all, this all controversial, divergent writing are called dalit writing, because dalit life is not unilinear. Dalit studies challenges the objectivity of knowledge and endorses the view that different belief systems and contradictory interpretations are possible. For example, Mathivannam is not convinced by Ravikumar, Sivakami and others who say that Periyar is an enemy of dalits and that he retarded their development and so on. On the contrary, he feels that Periyar and the movement he initiated have done many things for the upliftment of dalits. The recovery of Iyothee Thass, a Tamil dalit Buddhist scholar in the 1990s by some dalit writers, Mthivannam argues, an attempt to uproot the inclusive ideology of Periyar. Thass belonged to one dalit caste (parayar) and he worked for that caste group. So to him, the attacks on Periyar are a result of a union between the past Brahmin and the present Brahmin. Actually this argument is not so trivial; the whole Tamil dalit intelligentsias are divided in this issue that who is the dalit hero Periyar or Iyathee Thass. Ravikumar very plainly argues that the lineage of dalit is a Brahmin one (The original Brahmin- the Buddhist who were destabilized by the false Brahmins sometimes after the 10^th Century- suffered innumerable hardships, pg. 269) and he goes on for saying Periyar did not do anything for dalit and abolition of untouchability in Tamil Nadu.

He concludes his article, ‘Re-reading Periyar’

Ambedkar concludes his book, what congress and Gandhi Have done to the untouchables thus: ‘The untouchables will still have ground to say: ‘Good God! Is this man Gandhi our savour?’ if the deeds of Periyar are analysed the dalits in Tamil Nadu would ask a similar question: Good God! Is this man Periyar our savour?

Some argue dalits should grab the ‘best’ language with wonderful style and all, and other argue, dalits should write in their own languages. For example, Azhakiya Periyavan says, ‘I am a conscious stylist, but you must remember that I am also landless! People tend to believe that dalits are ugly and that we use an unrefined cheri bhasha. I want to respond to those criticisms by writing consciously in a literary style about dalit life.’ (pg. 231). Must dalit writers criticise dalit life? Still there are numerous stands about it, but Sivakami strongly bringing out a possible dalit woman writing through her novels.

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If I am asked to make a choice the most striking articles/stories from the dossier, what writings would I select? It is actually very easier said than done to select such a limited number of books from a huge collection. All are much thought provoking, enthralling writings. Another problem is articles, poems and stories are not the same genre. So my selection is very much subjective the seven most striking writing are;

1. Rock by MB Manoj (Pg: 530)
2. The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media by Ravikumar (pg: 266)
3. Kukai by cho.Dharman (pg.104)
4. Narrativizing the History of Slave Suffering by Sanal Mohan (535)
5. The Show (Abhirammi) (Pg: 75)
6. Ghost Speech by C Ayyappan (351)
7. Scavenger’s Son in the Collective Thinking of Tamil Writers by Mathivannan (Pg. 216)

I must explain why I select these seven writings as very unusual.

Rock is an extra ordinary dalit poem written with some unimaginable imageries and symbols. Each line of the poem is a long essay. Nobody has written what is a dalit poem in an easy way than Manoj wrote. It declares that when vein of a Muslim League activist oozes green blood and Marxist dark red, but for a dalit when s/he is stabbed s/he produces black blood! Remember the proverb, ‘better is to be a lion in day than be a rock for 1000 years’ so it  also denies the main stream idea of a valour, chivalric notions like lion and tigers and instead prises the importance of being a rock which has the years long experience, patience and it silently witnesses the fall and raise of communities. The least wanted and ever time unnoticed things like mud, rock, pebbles are never exampled in Malyalee aesthetic sense. Manoj dares to associate with it and hence goes in search of a dalit root. We see rocks everywhere but we don’t know when it emerged there. IN geography books we learn rocks are the result of powerful volcano, but we never see (but in TV of course!) in a volcano, the lava makes the rocks. In a place like Kerala this rock formation actually happened in a thousand years ago. Here the vocabulary of rock and dalit speaks the same. Both are the ancestral and inhabitants of the land. When a rock is demolished, the history, literature, poem of the rock is buried forever and only with lava the rock is created. Here the poet warns the privileged class of literary world, that if you people try to destroy the indigenous glory from the literature, the result will be powerful volcano again. In this poem there are pains of a yearlong negligence of the authority, anger of being sidelined. The poet also equates the sufferings of dalit with the sufferings of the Black people. Both are born with the disease of being unaccessed to the society. The notion of colour is also questioned here. Black is beauty, black beauty. The beauty of a rock is its colour of being black. So this strong imagery dismantles the very notion of beauty associated with any other privileged colour. And also it brings forth a new kind of beauty concepts. The image of rock is also an attempt to associate dalits to the nature. It strongly attacks the greediness of the capitalist/savarna/mainstream idea of destroying everything and exploiting everything for his/her own sake. Rocks (dalits) are the very indigenous, ancient inhabitants of the world. Its pebbles are always neglected. Because of its lack of visible power, people try to pull down or destroy it. for poet, the pebbles of the rock are the sons and daughters of the dalits.

The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media

Ravikumar’s article, The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media is quite impressive and incredible. He tries to find out a parallel media history for dalit. The immediate reason for his enquiry was the celebration of The Hindu’s 125^th anniversary on 13^th September 2003. In such a juncture, he traces the dalit media history in Tamil Nadu. His finding is very notable. Reclaiming against the main stream history of magazine production in Tamil Nadu, Ravikumar discovers Iyothee Thass, whose work has witnessed a revival in the post- Ambdekar centenary phase, has recorded the fact that the Parayar were the first to publish Tamil magazines in the Madrass presidency. Ravi’s history of Tamil media journeys parallel to the history of main stream publication, he problematizes all the claims The Hindu makes to celebrate. For example, see the parallel narration of both of the history,

G. Subramaniya Iyer, who started The Hindu and Swadesamitram, founded the Madrass Maha Jana Sabha in association with Anandacharyulu, Rangaianh Naidu and Ramasamy Mudaliyar in May 1884. However eight years early, Pandit Iyothee Thass had founded the Advaisananda Sabha in the Nilgris in 1876, he founded the Dravida Maha Sabha in 1891. The Hindu was founded in September 1878 with an investment of just Rs.1 and 12 annas- that too as a loan. Started as a weekly with eight pages selling for 4 annas, it initially had a print run of only eighty copies. Fifteen years later, in October 1893, Rettaimalai Srinivasan founded the magazine Parayan. It was started as a monthly with four pages for 2 annas. The total cost of production, including the advertisement, was Rs. 10. His reason for starting a magazine like Parayan was ‘So, those belonging to the parayar community should come forward openly to say, ‘I am Pariah’. Otherwise, he cannot enjoy freedom. He will lead the life of the suppressed and remain poor’. There is no doubt that The Hindu, which has not bothered to employ a single dalit in its 125 years of history, had the same ‘progressive’ attitude even during the time of Subramaniya Iyer. So he goes on saying that dalits very actively realized the importance of media as a powerful tool, but the representation of dalits in mainstream media is very minimal.

 He quotes Jeffrey who says,

‘If you ask an Indian journalist, ‘do you know any dalit journalist?’ the answer could be a long pause and then, ‘could you give me a couple of days?’ sometimes it was a considerate ‘no’. There were some dalit journalists in Malayala Manorama, but they worked in less significant position. Ravikumar ends this dalit version of media history with the hope of dalit will someday understand their ability to produce a national daily as did they hundred years ago.

Kukai by cho.Dharman

This long short story is a mixture of different imageries and metaphors. The central character is an owl which comes as the savour of the poor people of the village. The relation of a child and its protection by an owl is very powerful. The new generation would be saved by the alien, dirty night bird. The owl also becomes a mother/sister figure of the story.  The couple, Cheeni and his wife were thinking to grow crow, but accidently they discovers an owl and understand owl is very much related to their life. The village is dry and un-rainy and Cheeni’s act again suspected the villagers, and they are doubtful of such a sinful act of worshipping an owl, instead of accepting the socially normed deities and this intensifies their anger. Cheeni and his wife are adorning their dresses with owl shaped.

Cheeni with his wife go for a journey forever. Then he gets chance to prove that owl is the protector of the village when he come across the Gengaiah Nayakkar.

‘Why then you want to leave?’

Dont you know everything? I can’t but worship the owl!’

‘You silly fellow! Who would ever worship mudevi in one’s house?’

‘Even if it’s mudevi, was it not the owl that saved my child and ensured my progeny?’

‘You are right. I take that point. For so many generations my family has only one child, and that child too happens to be a male. Ask your owl god to give me another child. Or at least ask it to make that one child a girl. If that happens, I build a big temple for the owl, in this very village, and consecrate it’.

‘Here smear it on your forehead. Apply some on your wife’ as well. Next year you will have a son. Then year after it will be a girl, but it will not live as a girl.’

This girl also very important, she embodies the owl life and saves the people.

When Cheeni comes back to his village after long years, everything is changed. In a village where not a blade of grass could be seen except during monsoon, there was greenery everywhere. The appearance of the owl is described as ‘Suddenly, the din of birds clamouring could be heard. The branches rustled as the birds flew out. They circled around one tree and cried out. Akkaiah Nayakkar stood up and walked towards it. Cheeni followed him. On a newly cut branch,, freshly sprouting at the edges, sat an owl. All the birds attacked the owl and to tried to chase it away. The owl fled jumping from trees to trees in search of a hideout. The birds kept chasing it away.

‘What’s this bird? I have never seen it here.’

‘Saami, this is the night bird. We call it kukai, the owl. This bird is the real owner, the authority of this forest. This primeval bird knows not swift flight. Nor can it hide to escape attack. The colourful birds which came later drove it out of the forest. The owl lamented and cried for justice. You do not know how to sing. Or cry. Or speak. You do not have colourful plumes. Nor can you dance with feathers fanned out. You are the sinner that eats flesh. The other birds drove away the owl with these words.

The story suddenly speaks about the dalits who were the first inhabitants of the earth. And despite their strong history and knowledge they forgot to retaliate to the late comers of colourful birds. The story is very powerful and written in a very skilful way. The translator of the story admits, Kukai is a challenging novel to translate. If the words peculiar to the karisal region pose difficulties for translation into mainstream standard language, the metaphorical brilliance and the narrative structure, which is not slotted into chapters and sub-sections, puts demands on creative abilities that academic translators may not posses’. (pg. 104)

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Here I point out some absents in the text. Lackness and silence are always projected in any work. Firstly for some dalits, this book is literally a ‘no alphabet in sight’. When it’s a strong word against the marginalization and sidelined, some dalit writers did not get a space in the book. At least skipping of two dalit writers is not justified. The absence of Kandal Pokkundan and Kaviyoor Murali raises some serious questions.

Who is Kallen Pokudan? Pokkudan is a dalit, in its true meaning. He rejected his autobiography for its imperfection. If we can consider a book is a child of an author, Pokkudan considers his first autobiography (incidentally it is the first new-dali autobiography of a dalit ever written in Malayalam!) as premature birth. After publishing, Kandalkadukalkkidayiel Ente Jeevitham was widely recognized. In its zenith of publicity Pokkudan recognized the silence of a dalit life in the autobiography. He understood the way the interviewer diverted the issue of caste over the idea of class. He disowned Kandalkkadukalkkidayil Ente Geevitham (My Life among the Mangroves). Thaha Madai, the chronicler, was accused of diluting the political aspects of the Dalit environmental activist’s life. To allegations that it paid little to no attention to Pokkudan’s Dalit identity and concomitant political implications, Thaha Madai retorts that the intention from the start was to focus on Pokkudan’s struggles as a local environmental activist, not his caste identity. After a controversy the publisher, DC Book decided on Pokkudan’s version and came out with a more comprehensive and more authentic version, titled Ente Geevitham (My Life), transcribed by his son Sreejith. That moment he started to write the dalit part of his life. As a reader, one has the right to see Pokkudan in the book. In the last pages of the book, Yesudasan pains saying there is no dalit autobiography born yet.

It is very significant that the dalit community in Kerala has not produced a single autobiography yet. I am not sure if this observation is true. The inference that only a community which has self-confidence can produce autobiographies may perhaps be true. Literacy and politics might play important roles as well. We must not forget the fact that Ayyankali, the greatest dalit of Kerala, was himself illiterate. (Emphasize added)

(TM Yesudasan; Towards a Prologue to Dalit Studies, pp. 625)

That means he has not at all aware about the fact that a dalit called Kallen Pokkudan has written his dalit life! His autobiography was published in 2007 by the prestigious publisher DC Books and it was celebrated for being the first of its kind of genre. Though the autobiography skipped the very serious life experience of Pokkudan, and projected his political and environmental activism, still the ill treatment of the caste people came in the book here and there. The important thing was his denial of a good name. Dalits were prohibited to christian their child with a good name. Why Pokkudan was named as Pokkudan, because his pokkil (umbilical cord was too long), so he got that name, Pokkudan right from his birth. He again wrote his dalit life with the help of his son and other dalit writers. But to him, at least the title of the book is very meaningful; ‘No Alphabet in Sight’.

Anyway when the reading comes to the Malayalam section, one feels the powerful current of the dalit writing has just stopped or at least faded away. In Tamil Nadu, the dalit creativity is very powerful, it is multi-faceted, sharp, poly-linear, colourful, but when we reaches to the ‘Malayalam Sector’, the whole dalit issue revolves round a single issue of land reform. Re-reading of much acclaimed Land Reform, the land issue itself,  and the govermentality of the Kerala government are very vital and these should be questioned, but when it is a dossier of dalit writing, it suddenly reduces its focus to this issue. For example, CK Janu gets a space in the book though she is not a dalit in a ‘literal sense’. If we consider the Maharashtra Dalit Panther’s definition, all adivasis, landless, women are coming under the category of dalit nad here CK Janu comes in this all these three category, but in her interview the difference between dalit and adivassi are more obvious. Each line of her interview says dalits and adivasis have different issues to look after. She says:

True, after Muthanga, a distance (between dalits and adivasis) emerges. With the build-huts protest, it is only the adivasis who get land, right? I think part of the problem was that even though there was a huge dalit presence in the protest, land was only given to adivasis. Also, the build hut protest happened in the heart of the governemtn, in the city. It also got the attention of and supprto fo the media. It was a struggle that got international recognition. But Muthanga was basically a different kind of a struggle. The build-huts protest was a symbolic struggle. The Muthanga protest was based on actually acquiring land. I have my doubts how  the dalit friends understood both these protests. Muthanga was more risky. There was the possibility that clashes, fightsand conflict would emerge. It is to be determined how many people have the stamina to go through with such a struggle.

(CK Janu, We Need to Build Huts all over Kerala, Again and Again, pp 444-5)

Here she actually raises serious psychic problem of dalit who attends any of the struggle. Dalits are afraid the situation wherever a stamina needs to go with a struggle and are suspecting the outcome of the struggle and its benefit. I was saying that Janu’s interview is included because she is talking about land struggle. Apart from this, if dossier really wants to include any adivasi, it must be Narayan who wrote the first adivasi novel in Malayalam literature and it got the  Kerala Sahitya Akademy Award.

Dalits are not a single, homogenous category. It spreads through different religion and castes. When a reader goes through the Malayalam section, s/he wonders the least depiction of the multiple dalit lives there. Comparing with Tamil Nadu section, this section is more linear and homogenous. Most of the writers are representing the Dalit Christians (true, their marginality is also very central, but when it is about the Malayalam dossier, all other sections are marginalized in the book). The 90% of the authors are either from South Kerala or Dalit Christian! It is not incidental. The life of northern Kerala dalits is minimal and silenced. Raghavan Atholi, Pradeepan Pampirikkunnu and M Kunhaman are the three lone representatives of the North Kerala. One wonders that do they have nothing to say in this discussion. And the description of some authors are irrelevant. For example, when Lovely Stephen is described, the descriptions goes on, ‘It was during this period she met TM Yesudevan, then president of the CSI Youth Movement and close to Dynamic Action. She married him in 1985 and both decided to continue their social activism. However, Lovely and Yesudevan maintained their contacts with the friends at Thiruvalla even after they shifted to Kurichi.

How to Overcome Euro-spendo-phobia: A Conversation with the Doctor

Dear doctor,
I am writing this note from Berlin, Germany. My question is: ‘After coming to Europe I face up a very serious psychic problem. Let me elucidate it. Whenever I go to any supermarket to purchase stuffs, I perceive everything in Indian rupees. When I wish to buy a spoon, its rate is 1 euro, but my mind is calculating the price in Indian currency that equals to 70 rupees. Do you think I should buy a simple ‘chammach’ for 70 rupees? Its really crazy, na? When I want to have a cup of coffee or tea the rate in India rupee equals to more than 100 Rs! Do you think I am mad to have a cup of coffee/ tea for such a merciless price? So I am compelled to share my coffee or tea with my friend, if I buy it. We add ‘the free milk’ and ‘sugar’ more to make it two cups or three. So we can at least manage.  When it comes to the drinking water, you know, I have to spend more than 90 rupees for a one litter bottle of mineral water! Leave this all, if I need to go for pissing I need to pay them Rs.70! What a pity! So in such instances I am compelled to come back home unwillingly from any place and do it in my hostel only. It affects my body.

When I need to travel, for a day-ticket its 7 Euro, but in Indian rupees its more than 500! This 500 is enough for me to get an annual bus ticket from APSRTC. So I am compelled to travel without ticket or avoid any journey and to sit idly at my room always. It increases my body pressure and I become more lonely. The most miserable part of the story is recently I went to a museum with my friends, and when I found the entry ticket cost is 8 euro, I was calculating it into Indian rupees and it is equal to Rs. 500. Dr, do you think I am mad enough to go inside of the museum to see the older uninteresting stuffs spending easily that 500 Rs? So I felt a head ache and sat outside waiting for my friend coming out. Hence I wasted 5 hours just looking at the sky above. But the interesting part of this miserable story was I realized that I could also write poems, I attach that poem with the letter, after reading this note, you read that poem and send me some compliments.

I am half dead now, because of this problem I can’t buy anything. For our easily available banana, I have to pay Rs. 160! For tomato its more than 200, leave it all, for a smoke I need to pay 450 Rs for a pack! I am in a very desperate condition. You know I usually cut my hair once in two months, if it is not done in a month. Don’t like to grow my unwanted hair so long. I usually go to the cheapest available place to do this and bargain for a less price. Last time before coming here I gave 15 rupees for cutting hair from traditional cutting practitioner. (actually he deserved Rs. 10 I would say!) I had not cut my hair before coming to Berlin, so I went a hair beautification shop, but I did not enter into the shop, I saw the price from a board they kept outside. It is 20 euro. I said I have that problem of converting everything in Indian rupees, so when I did it I saw it was more than 1400 Indian rupees! Do you think I am such a stupid to go and sit before him? I was wondering I have that 1400 in my hand, then I can easily manage cutting hair for lifetime.

And seriously the moment I was very happy, was when I went to a 'Wishing Well' with my friends, I saw millions of euros submerged in the water, I thought everything is euro, but all are 'coins', so I donated one Indian Rupee coin and wished my dream (sorry, I wont say what I wished, its a secret), I think it also related to the problem I am explaining to you. 

Dear doctor, I am in a great blight condition and day by day my life becomes grimy. So I expect your earliest response to how I can overcome these troubles. Doctor, I have some doubts. Is it a health problem? If it not then, what is it?  Is it curable? I will be very happy if you give me a quick response, still then I can’t eat anything properly. From next year my other friends also may come to Europe, so your reply will be added benefit for those friends also.

Thanking you

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Dear friend,

I read your letter very carefully and interestingly. Your note is not complete, but from the description I guess it’s a serious symptom of a psychic disorder called Eurpspendophobia. This disorder is termed in different names in different places. In Europe except Britain it is called eurospendophobia and in Britain its Poundspendophobia. In most of the American countries it is termed as dollerospendophobia. This symptom largely was seen in India after the massive migration of the people to gulf countries. It was seen specifically in the northern part of Kerala and doctors called this physic disorder as dinar-spendo-phobia. Later in southern part of Kerala, when people started migrating to Canada and other American countries, another disorder but with the same symptoms was seen, doctors termed it as dollerospendophobia. Anyway there is nothing to worry about it. With some practical exercises, this disorder could be easily recovered. For a better understanding I also explain how I overcame this symptom when I went to England for my research purpose. So this answer is a little autobiographical also.

What I was saying is that once I was sent to England from my University after getting Madam Curie scholarship. I was caught by this psychic disorder called Poundspendophobia. I was getting more than 3000 but this phobia compelled me to not spend any pound for a long. I wanted to visit a lot of museums, amusement parks, party, film festivals, clubs, but I could not do. I felt that somebody was pulling me behind and every time I went to the museums and other better destinations only to come back unhappily. In such a miserable condition, I paused my research and did some social research on how to overcome this health and psychic problem. My findings are given below, and I guess, you can also adopt most of the solution I implemented. After applying these all, I completely recovered from this phobia. 

1. European countries are blessed with plenty of water resources like lakes and rivers. But you will not find out any common drinking pipe system there as we find it in India. You need to spend some euro for buying for bottles. As you wrote in the note, for a litter of mineral water you have to give more than 90 rupees! When I faced the same situation in England, I would always try to not drink a single drop of water for along. So I also found a new way of endurance. (I have published a book based on this experiment of survival). A healthy (wo)man needs not much water as we usually read in newspaper and other research findings. All these researches are coming from the vested interested parties who want to sell their water bottles for a high price. By doing this you can also positively reject this hegemonic ideas of the capital society. The other method is you can use the tape water for drinking purpose. People are using the tape water to prepare coffee, tea and cooking, but who advise you to not drink it? Here again, I suspect the above mentioned capitalist hegemonic ideology has been worked out to prevent us to not drink the tape water. Remember, you are struggling against the dominant ideology with your own act. In my analysis this hegemonic culture also produces a new notion of purity and impurity. If we use the same tape water for cooking, coffeeing and teaing, then you can also use it for drinking. So I think using this method you can easily overcome the problem of drinking water. Coffee and tea are the products of capitalism. The over consumption of both are taught by the late capitalist society. Better is to read all the research papers which find both coffee and tea are very harmful to our metabolic functions of body. The two dreadful nicotine contents of coffee and tea may cause us dangerously and it may take us even to death. Why should we put a cobra around our shoulder deliberately? The other studies have been assessed that these two capitalist drinks are more harmful than alcohol. So think twice before you have tea or coffee.

There is nothing danger than serving milk every day. In naturopathy, milk is not at all ideal nutrition. When the industrialization happens, it was their compulsion to feed people more milk, so they fooled people renting the leading scientist and declared milk is an ideal and perfect nutrition for health. Remember there is nothing called ideals, we are living in a postmodern society and we believe in reflexivity and relativity. So the authentic versions of ideal, perfection, completeness are nothing but the re-production of the hegemonic vocabulary. So here you can successfully prevent all these propagandas by avoiding milk. And what is exactly this milk? Milk is a birth right of a calf. And nobody has entertained to snatch the right of an animal by dirking his/her dutiful and necessitate right of having its mother’s breast milk. You can also join the animal right movement by declaring your solidarity to not consume the milk. And still you want to drink it, and then you can elaborate your method of sharing. Every time when you go to the shop, keep a secret glass with you, and order a coffee/ tea, then take your secret glass and pour more milk into it. By doing this you can get more milk for a less amount, (but still I advice to not go for this)

2.      You have also mentioned the public comfort stations are very expensive and you have to pay at least Rs. 70 for a going. It is actually very easy to solve this issue. Firstly if you practice how to reduce the drinking water so, you can also successfully reduce going to the toilet several times. If you are travelling anywhere, you try to not drink a single drop of water, so you can prevent going to the toilet. Most of the European countries successfully utilize the human waste for industrial purpose, they collect it massively and produce biogas. They are using our ‘unproductive’ waste and increasing their income. And instead of giving us our rightful money back they are paying from us. Quite lot of theoreticians critiqued the exploitative notion of this capitalist economy. Marx is still important to think about. Here we are a labour class, producing our ‘surplus’ amount and giving to them without getting anything, but paying to them instead. It’s a very naked exploitation and you can also conduct some protest against the unnatural utilization of labour and money. The other way to avoid this is, in most of the European countries there are some bushes called Common Floss Flower and small plants are seen. Studies reveal European countries maintain forestry and ecology more than enough. So you can utilize such a possibility ‘to go to nature’ for nature’s call. Here you are fight back to the capitalist ideology by watering the plant and also negating their ideology of paying for everything.

3. In my study I have found out that museums and entertainment business are nothing but the usual practice of late capitalism. It is not the common man’s need to keep the old and ancient stuff to declare their ancestry and power they inherited through generation. We must have to deny this brain storming practice of keeping the hegemonic ideological symbols which kept the lower class people’s practices and rituals invisible. In a close reading, here I guess a new equation has also been worked out. By charging high cost as entry fee, they are historically keeping away the lower class people to enter their cultural symbols and practices. So do you think it is better to go inside giving such a heavy price and enjoy the old power structures of the dominant class or keep out yourself from such ideological power producing houses? So if you are not going to any museum or tourist place means you are approaching to the culture of common man and depressed class. The lower class people will never hide their cultural symbols, actually these are not for hiding and charging money but for spreading and showing. The other amusement industries and theatre industries are doing the same.

    4.And for your questions about cutting hair, I think you need a more elaborate answer. I strongly suggest you to not cut your hair. So have to protest against the male chauvinism which bloomed inside in you. Let me elaborate that point. I should say something about the masculinity and how the idea of a masculine image, we people are nurturing in our mind. Patriarchy has done enough destruction to the natural growth of a child. This is only the patriarchal system taught us to cut our hair to differentiate from women. Hence it soon became a symbol of valour, power, and masculinity. The social and cultural system compelled each man in a society to follow a particular system to control his inner motives. And after world war second was over, then the women were forced to go inside of her house, and they were forced to grow their hair. Women had enough time after doing all domestic works, so the patriarchy taught her to spend nurturing and oiling her hair. Men were forced to cut their hair because he had to do all the public activities and the public places were soon seen only the cut-haired heads and it became a symbol of handsome, heroism and manliness. We have to awaken and walk in our own way. Here by disobeying the patriarchal way of living you are liberating yourself from that nasty patriarchal culture. Historically speaking, hair was not at all disturbing symbol for men in older days. In a research I did about the ancient Rome, I found most of the ancient folks were encouraged to keep their hair uncut. You look at the prophets, eminent leaders, and revolutionaries, they kept their hair uncut at least for six months. So for you, these six months are very perfect.  Nothing in our body is unwanted. If it grows by nature, we should not prevent it. Why we try so is because the social system teach us to do so.

I want to add more on this issue. But you are in such a hurry so I am skipping some of my research on how I could easily overcome my own eurospendophobia. If you have any further clarification, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Dr. Guna Shekharan

MA (Sociology), PhD (Cultural Studies)